Burning Bright
by Rose G
Summary: Set after TCI. The Doctor tries to find out about 'Torchwood.' Sometimes, it's better not to know thine enemy.


Burning Bright

Rose G

Disclaimer - All characters / settings are the property of BBC TV, and I am making no money from their use.

The Doctor grinned at Rose, a more restrained look than normal but still probably quite intimidating if you didn't know him. 'Honest, I'm only going to be a minute. Just have to speak to her about this Torchwood lot, make sure they're not going to be a threat to me anytime. Won't take long.'

Rose returned to her first complaint. 'You still can't land the TARDIS in the middle of Downing Street, Doctor. No matter how long for.'

'Why not?'

'Cos - cos it's probably guarded and everything. Won't let you.'

'Wanna bet?' He whacked one of the flight controls, then gave her a half-challenging stare that reminded her vividly of his previous self. His confidence, almost arrogance, that he could do anything. How she ever have doubted that this man was someone different?

'No-aaarggh!' The ship juddered to a landing that knocked her off balance. 'What in Hell was that, then, if it wasn't something trying to stop you landing?'

'That was the Downing Street defenses against spaceships. Not, can I point out, timeships. Obviously, whatever ape relative of yours they've put in charge, he can't deal with the TARDIS. Or me. Or maybe they could, but they like me. I mean, everyone likes me, right?'

'Less of the modesty, you. Look, I'll wait, okay?'

He looked incredibly smug as he left and breezed up to Number 10. Rose watched him, trying not to laugh as he spun the confused looking guard some incredible story, then slipped through while he was trying to call up reinforcements. New man, same old Doctor. Fantastic.

'Prime Minister.'

'Doctor.'

Harriet's voice was tempered steel; he couldn't blame her for it, but he didn't like having that tone directed at him. 'If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you something. If it's okay.' Bit of humility there, more than he could have managed in his last incarnation. Maybe it was not swaggering around in a leather jacket that helped.

'I need to ask you something, Doctor. Like where you were when that invasion started. Why you left it until it was almost too late for my people. Why you didn't answer when we called out for you to come and save us. Things like that.'

'I was ill! You think I would have done that on purpose, after all those times I've come to this wretched planet and saved it? Years of putting up with your lot, looking out for them when they couldn't for themselves, and you seriously think that I wanted to leave Rose to deal with it all? Your people almost died, I almost died. Don't you think I would have changed it if I could?

'There's things that not even I can change, alright. This...it wasn't my fault.'

She glared at him; with an effort, he thought of Rose in the TARDIS, waiting to travel 'in that direction...or that one...'and he smiled in the most disarming fashion he knew. Convince her that he was truly repentant about it all. He was really, it just didn't come naturally to admit that he'd mucked everything up.

The Prime Minister sighed. 'You know of course...you saw the defensive mechanisms I've got in place...Never meant you to know about it yet. Operation Torchwood. I'm sorry if it caused you any problems; they've not got any orders about letting you through yet. That wasn't my fault. Equal, are we?' An apology, or as near as he was likely to get.

'That defensive mechanism of yours just murdered an entire race. An entire race that I'd persuaded to surrender.'

'Was it that you come to argue about then, Doctor?'

Fantastic, maybe that hadn't been an apology after all. 'Discuss. Discuss why an ally of mine found it necessary to wipe out an entire species.'

'Listen, Doctor, they probably didn't all die. And you didn't persuade them to surrender; you fought their leader - a _sword fight - _then demanded that they leave, so don't come over all moral on me. I did it to protect my people.'

'And that makes it better? You think who you're speaking to, and tell me that it's okay to kill hundreds of innocents in order to protect some more? Look, I've done it, and it doesn't work, it doesn't make anything safe. You shouldn't have done it.'

'I didn't...It was Torchwood.'

'_But you gave the command!'_ He shouted that, not caring if everyone in the house heard. 'You had no right to kill them. No-one's got a right to do that.'

'What do you know about Torchwood? Apart from the name, and what they did?'

'If Rose got everything right, then...they took a long while to respond...they don't know as much as you think they do, or they weren't listening or something. Lethbridge-Stewart wouldn't have tolerated that, so...I don't think they're true government. I think someone's tricked you, or you've tricked them...And you shouldn't tell them to do anything like that...I guess they're your hired brute force and ignorance.'

'Close, Doctor. Very close. Why don't you sit down?'

'No thanks. Torchwood. Tell me about it.' He settled for pacing and rubbing his hands through his hair instead of yelling. Save that for Rose later, poor girl.

'Torchwood aims to defend against alien invasion of any kind -'

'Why, thank you so much. Do I get blown to smithereens next time I stop by for an unannounced visit, then? Cos if so, I'll spend summer with the Slitheen or someone else a bit more welcoming.'

'And bring alien technology into government projects and the like. It's going to be very useful - as you saw yesterday.'

'Good for them.'

'Shut up, Doctor.'

Fair comment, there. He deserved it, but Harriet Jones kept on speaking over his attempt to say so, in true dealing with unruly members of the house style.

'The group doesn't exist, officially, so you were quite right. The man in charge set the group up as some kind of personal crusade; I'm told he was desperate to make contact with aliens, almost obsessed with them. And he attracted followers, quite a lot of them, through being charming and rich. Oh, and devastatingly good looking. Anyway, they were beginning to have a fair bit of success, so we gave them an easy way and a hard way. Funnily enough, they all took the easy way and gave up, except for the man in charge. He wouldn't, so he joined us and then a few of them drifted over eventually. Wouldn't leave him.'

'Who is he?'

'Had as much luck tracing that as we've had tracing your name. We've got six or seven names that he's used at various stages, but none of them are correct, and we can only trace him back three years. Even the Americans can't track him before that; it's like he didn't existed before then. He's using a Northern accent at the moment - very similar to yours. I mean, what you used to sound like. Obviously false - it slips pretty much every night when he's tired or drunk, and then he's foreign but I can't place it.'

'Drinks a lot, does he?'

'Does everything a lot. Drinks, gets hauled back fighting mad after a punch up, gets slapped because he won't leave the girls alone - or the men - and when he isn't doing that, he's got himself done for fraud twice. You any idea how often I've had to save his neck? But...he's just one of these people you can't help liking. Which is why the rest of the group followed him eventually.'

The Doctor smiled sadly. 'Had a friend; he traveled with me and Rose for a while. First time I met him, he was dressed up as a fighter pilot in the London Blitz and trying to get her drunk on champagne. Had a stolen warship full of illegal nanogenes, nearly got us killed, and then I let him come with us...What was I thinking? He was a complete rouge, but he saved our necks a few times...Out in Russia once, he went and rescued this girl that everyone else had left - one of the bravest things I've ever seen. He was fantastic - fantastic company, fantastic at everything.' And maybe that wasn't a bad epithet for a man who he hadn't thought would ever die.

'Was?'

'He was killed by a Dalek. I had to step right over him to get to Rose; left him laying there on their ship when we escaped. That was just before I - changed. He knew he was going out to die...he kissed us goodbye and went marching out there to fight them. He grinned; I remember that...'

'I'm sorry.'

'Thanks. Jack was one of the best companions I've ever had. And it weren't just me - Rose was fond of him as well. Maybe it was the champagne.'

'Jack? Was he a military man? A captain?'

'Captain?' The Doctor laughed grimly. 'No more a military man than I'm a medical doctor. I guess he liked the uniforms or something...He called himself captain; Rose used to say she was surprised he hadn't promoted himself all the way to general. Why?'

'Doctor, the man I have in charge of Operation Torchwood calls himself Captain Jack Harkness. Lovely man, good at his job, not safe to take your eyes off him for a second.'

'Jack Harkness is dead. He was my companion. I - saw - his - body, up on that satellite. I might be a new man but I've got the same damn memories and they sure as hell include seeing him laying on the floor, still holding onto his gun. There was blood dripping from his mouth. Do you know what it's like to see your friend dead, in the cold and the dark, and have to leave him there? Because I do. And he's dead, Jack is, so leave it alone.'

It wasn't like they could have got on to a more painful subject than that, not even Gallifrey or his regeneration. Jack - he hadn't even had the courage to discuss his death with Rose.

'Would you recognize him? Because he isn't acting, this man, he's his true self, and I can't believe someone would have stolen your Jack's name and just happened to be the exact same character. Too many coincidences.'

'That's all it is. Now, leave it alone. Just tell me why Torchwood and you acted like that yesterday.' He didn't believe it was Jack, didn't want to imagine his friend killing a race like that.

The Prime Minister scrabbled around on her desk, then thrust a photo under his nose. 'Is this the man who you traveled with? Just look at it.'

The Doctor's legs trembled; without asking whether the earlier offer was still open, he collapsed into the nearest chair. The digital print was of Jack, outside somewhere, brown hair and white top rippling in the breeze. An ensign, mostly blue, was sown into the shirt, right over his heart. He was smiling for the camera, or more likely, remembering Jack, for the person holding it. There was a distinct hopeful element to his smile.

'How old it that picture?' Just before they'd met, he guessed; the American looked no different to how he had in those last few, hurried, minutes on the satellite.

'Twenty-four hours or so. I'm given to understand that Torchwood had an impromptu Christmas celebration last night. Mark their first major success. Someone very kindly provided me with the prints this afternoon.'

'And - and that's your Jack?'

'Assuredly. As is the person in most of the other shots, which aren't up for public viewing. Indecency laws and the like. So, you regonise him, them?'

'Yes.'

'There's this as well, Doctor. I presume it got lost sometime last night; whoever sent those prints enclosed it. Here, have a look.'

She handed over an ID card, tagged with a portrait shot of Jack - he was smirking, even in that - and the Torchwood name and the same ensign that had been on his shirt, above that. His job description simply read 'Commander.'

'I see he got his promotion,' the Doctor commented wryly. 'Who organised that?'

'He did.' Harriet Jones stared at him intently, as if wondering just how much she trusted him. 'Mr. Harkness was very hands on with this group -'

'I bet he was.'

'- And the name and ensign were already in use before we got involved. His request that we leave that alone come before he started quibbling over pay. It seemed to matter to him, so we left it alone.'

The Doctor glanced at the ensign again. An eagle, wings furled, swooping down towards a planet, all outlined in a blue box. He thought he understood. 'Why Torchwood?' He'd thought it just a code word at first, but if it mattered more than pay to Jack, there had to be some deeper meaning; he just couldn't see it.

'I asked him, and he got all evasive. Said it was a name and a question, a message for someone...so they'd know he was waiting for them if they ever come home. Then he pretty much passed out - that was a Friday night, and he'd been on the lash. Since then, he's flatly denied there's any significance to it, but he doesn't want it altered.'

Hell, Jack...He could see it now, tapped out the letters in sequence. 'Doctor. Doctor Who, asking me my name. Calling me, so I'd know he was here, and a friend...' He hated to think of the agony behind that choice, how Jack must have believed they'd left him on purpose.

'He was afraid that I'd forgot him, or that I wouldn't answer him if he called...Settled for just using my name, just making it a bit less lonely...' No, he'd save that for when he saw Rose; she'd understand, would share that burning anger and grief at what they'd done to their friend.

'I'm sorry...Least you know that he's alive, though. And I've never heard him blame you for anything, Doctor. Alistair was right - he said you'd taken the blame for everything, every war, every death, every problem, if we let you, but this time...Torchwood saved us all. Jack did...'

Saved a planet by blowing people up. That was exactly what he hoped his companion's life would have been like in these circumstances. As if Jack wasn't carrying enough problems and old griefs, without this lot.

'Why don't you tell me a bit more about him? Like why I can't find his name anywhere, that sort of thing.'

'Because...he's American born. Fifty-first century, I think. He don't talk much about that...Jack Harkness might be his real name - I never asked him, he never offered. Why should I care about that? He spent a while working for the Time Agency; the rest of his life...Ask him that, see if he wants to tell you or not, because I won't.'

'That really inspires confidence, Doctor. I've got to depend on him guarding my planet, and you won't tell me what he'd done in the past.'

'It's things that were done to him that I won't tell you about, Prime Minister. And if he said that he'd guard Earth, then he will. He's got more reasons to than you know.' As if he ended up in Rose's city, in her time, by accident. 'Just remember, he's a liar, a cheat, and completely flexible in his attitudes towards anything; he'll make a fantastic military politician. But you can trust him - he'll die for you. He died for me and Rose, up on that space station.'

He paused and glanced at the photo again. 'You got a phone number for him or anything? Should warn him not to deepfry the TARDIS or anything, as Rose put it. Talk to him.'

'He won't come with you again, Doctor. I won't allow it.'

'Isn't that up to Jack?'

'As a man, maybe. Not as an officer of a military op. He's got duties, responsibilities, now. I could tell you where he is. No more.'

'Okay.' That would do; there wasn't anything on any planet, let alone Earth, that the TARDIS couldn't get into, if the Doctor wanted to reach someone that badly. It would be Jack's choice, anyway; maybe dying once was enough to put him off their lifestyle. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk as she printed out two phone numbers. 'Cheers.'

'You mind if I try and get him now? Be a surprise for Rose.'

'Help yourself.' She pointed at the phone on her desk and left him alone in the office as he dialed the home number.

No answer, however long he let it ring. Then the mobile, which was rewarded with an answer phone message. 'Hiya. I'm kinda busy but leave a message an' if I like the sound of it, I'll call ya back.' As assured and seductive as he remembered Jack being.

It was too much, hearing that voice. Unsteadily, he crammed the picture and numbers into his pocket, then hurried out. Harriett Jones waved him farewell; he returned the gesture and sprinted through the ash to the TARDIS.

'Rose! Rose!'

'What is it?'

He showed her the picture, half laughing, half weeping as she regonised Jack, and heard the story. He stumbled over explaining the name Torchwood, almost embarrassed that Jack had used his name like that, and then more upset as he tried to explain why he'd left the captain on the satellite. He hadn't cried then; he wasn't going to cry now because Jack was alive, somewhere in the city, and judging by the pictures and message on his phone, having enjoyed an active night. Whatever else was wrong with this new body, it wouldn't be reddened eyes.

Rose's arms went around his shoulders, holding him close; she didn't seem to mind that he was crying. 'Jack used your name cos he loves you...And I love you, so...it'll be fine. Jack's fine, we're fine...'

She smoothed his hair back, held him for a while longer until a thought struck her. 'What did he have to do with that massacre? What about all that?'

'No.' The Doctor sounded surprised. 'When I found that out...I just forgot everything else...That woman tricked me! She totally distracted me from what I was doing, then got me to leave and had me thinking it was my idea! How dare she!'

He spun and went to race back out, but Rose grabbed his hand. 'Leave it. Jack isn't going to deepfry the TARDIS anytime soon, so we're quite safe to come back anytime. Let's go. We can catch him up later, take him with us again.'

He turned to face her, almost smiling again. 'Where to?'

She glanced at the console, showing a solar system she'd never seen. 'That star there. Ready?'


End file.
